#ocacc

Bae all but vaulted over the reception desk so as to be able to see through the little window beside Kathryn's chair, cupping his hands around his face to peer through the glass. He could just make out Belle and Dad in the cafe opposite, sitting at a secluded table in one corner and laughing.

"What are they eating?" Kathryn asked, squeezing in at the window beside Bae. "You know, I should have brought Jim's binoculars."

"Something with gooey caramel in, by the look of it," Bae said. He drew back from the window. "Yeah, we should probably give them some privacy."

"Oh, but this is fun," Kathryn said, before giving a sigh of agreement and returning to her chair. "I feel extraordinarily protective of their relationship, having spent so long watching them tiptoe around each other and having witnessed its humble beginnings, I want to make sure they're ok. It's like getting really, really invested in a fictional couple in a TV show. You keep tuning in every week to see how they're getting on."

Bae shook his head in good-natured despair, but he too could see where Kathryn was coming from. They both felt the need to safeguard this blossoming romance, having gone to such great lengths to get it started.

"Still," he said. "At least we know that all our hard work paid off."

"I know, but I still keep waiting for one of them to put their foot in it." Kathryn gave a huff. "I don't want our work to be in vain, Bae!"

Bae pondered the current status quo. He sadly could not trust his father not to muck things up, but he was pretty certain that Belle could be trusted, and he told Kathryn so.

"I think I'd trust that judgement," Kathryn said. "Oh, oh, hang on, they're coming back."

Bae rushed back to the window to see Dad and Belle leaving the cafe and making their way back across to the law office, arm in arm. They stopped at the door, their conversation inaudible but evidently amusing, as Belle was laughing. He couldn't see Dad's face, but his stance seemed to be relaxed.

"How's it going?" Kathryn asked.

"I think they might..."

Belle leaned in to Dad and his hand came up to cup her face, and even though the angle prevented much being seen, it was clear that they were sharing a kiss.

As far as Bae could tell, it was their first kiss since the panicked one under the mistletoe.

"Yes!" Kathryn punched the air and high-fived Bae again. "I think we can consider this a job well done."

“Bae’s got a football match in the afternoon,” Rum said. “I’m going to cheer him on.” He paused. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind the extra support if you wanted to come along. I mean, you don’t have to, of course. I imagine that watching a bunch of teenage boys running around a muddy field isn’t exactly your idea of a good time…”

“I’d love to,” Belle said firmly. She liked Bae, he was a very pleasant young man, and if it wasn’t for his intervention then it might have taken another six months of tiptoeing and mixed signals before she and Rum had taken the plunge and admitted their mutual romantic attraction.

Rum smiled, his slightly bashful, schoolboy smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and took years off his face.

“It’s at the school,” he said. “Would you like a lift?”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

“I’ll pick you up at three?” There was a pause before Rum spoke again. “I don’t actually know where you live.” He sounded rather sheepish and Belle grinned, writing her address down on his notepad and tearing it off.

“There you go. I’ll see you at three. I’m looking forward to it.”

Rum scrutinised her face, as if he couldn’t quite believe her, but then nodded, seeing her genuine enthusiasm.

“I’ll see you then. Dress warmly, it’s forecast to be absolutely dismal weather.”

X

It was nearly three and Belle had no idea what to wear. She was going to be standing outside for a long time and it was, as Rum had predicted, horrible weather. Luckily it was not raining, but it was still damp and grey, and slightly foggy.

Dress warmly, Rum had said, and Belle intended to do just that, but she also wanted to look nice. This was a sort of date after all. Sadly she had no idea what was appropriate attire for going to your boyfriend’s son’s football match.

Eventually she settled for layers. Layers were good, especially in the cold. And it wasn’t an especially formal occasion, and it was in a school field, so sturdy boots would be a good idea too.

Thick leggings, thick socks, thick corduroy skirt. Layers of knitwear.

That was good.

Very good, since it was three o’clock and she’d just heard a car pull up outside her flat.

Belle grabbed her handbag and the flask of tea she’d made and careened out of the front door, meeting Rum in the middle of the garden path as he was coming up to ring her doorbell.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

There was an awkward moment of silence, neither of them really knowing what to say.

“I made tea,” Belle blurted out eventually, holding up the flask and the little travel mugs. “I thought we might need it.”

Rum smiled.  “I think you might be my favourite person in the world right now.”  He gestured down the path towards his car. “Your carriage awaits, milady.”

Belle smiled and got into the car.

“Hey Belle!” Bae said from the back. “I’m glad you could come.”

“I’m looking forward to it, Bae. I’ll warn you that I have no idea about the rules but I will enthusiastically cheer whenever your team has the ball.”

“That’s good enough,” Bae said.

The journey to the school did not take long and there were not that many people there. Belle did not voice her concern, but Bae must have sensed it.

“Dad likes to get here early so he can get a seat,” he said, indicating the few low benches around the playing field. “Otherwise his leg’ll seize up and he won’t be able to drive home.”

They made their way over to the field and sat down whilst Bae ran off to speak to his teammates and get ready for the game. Belle poured the tea and they drank in companionable quiet for a while. Rum’s arm came around her shoulders as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and Belle snuggled closer into his side, because in that moment, it was the most natural thing in the world.

More parents were milling around, and Belle noticed a group of mothers in the other corner of the field, whispering amongst themselves and casting sidelong glances at her and Rum.

“Rum,” she began, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Hmm?”

“I…” Belle began, but then stopped. “It’s ok, it’s nothing.”

She cast a glance at the gaggle of women, and one of them caught her eye, giving a disarmingly pleasant smile that did not reach her eyes.

“Ignore them.”  Belle turned to see a young blonde woman sitting on the bench beside them. “They’re the alpha-mums. You know the type, classic pushy parents. They don’t like anything that’s not the norm.”

Belle recognised the lady, she worked part time at Granny’s.

“Emma, is it?”

“Yeah, you must be Belle.”

They shook hands and Belle could feel Rum grinning beside her.

“My Henry’s in the team too,” Emma explained. “So, what do you think, Gold?” she asked over Belle’s shoulder. “Can they break a losing streak?”

“Of course,” Rum said. “I have every faith in them. And Emma’s right, Belle. Ignore the vultures. They’re all of a flutter because the grumpy old curmudgeon who’s turned up to every match alone suddenly has an incredibly beautiful young woman on his arm. They’re just jealous.”

All the same, Belle could not help but feel a little unease.

It soon passed as the game got underway though. Despite their best efforts, Bae’s team could only hold their opponents to a draw, but as Bae said when he came running up to them, dishevelled and covered in mud but grinning from ear to ear, it was better than losing.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, Belle,” Emma said as they said their goodbyes. “How I’m going to get you home,” she added to Henry, who was almost completely caked in mud from head to toe, “is beyond me though.”

Belle had to laugh as Emma steered her son away, still despairing of how he had managed to get quite so filthy in such a comparatively short space of time. "Thanks for coming, Belle," Bae said as they made their way back towards the car. "Do you want to come back to ours for dinner? Dad’s making fajitas."

Rum looked at his son. “I am?”

"You are."

"Apparently I am making fajitas. You’re very welcome to join us," Rum said to Belle before returning his attention to his son. "Bae, do we even have any of the ingredients for fajitas?"

"We should do, I added them to the online shopping basket and I put them away when the shopping arrived."

"What?" Rum shook his head in despair as they walked back towards the car. "Sometimes I think I’m not in control of my own life."

"Of course you aren’t, Dad, that’s what you have me for." Bae patted his shoulder. "So, would you like to come?" he asked Belle.

"That would be very nice, thank you."

X

As soon as they got into the house, Bae excused himself to go and take a shower and bounded up the stairs, leaving Rum and Belle alone in the hallway. Belle remembered that this was the first time that she had ever been inside Rum’s domain and she felt that the occasion demanded a certain level of respect.

She wasn’t quite sure what she had been expecting. What she got was a perfectly ordinary family home, on the large side for two people, but crammed with all kinds of unique keepsakes and oddments, and strangely mismatched furniture.

“I restore antiques,” Rum said, as Belle’s eyes alighted on a pair of dining chairs stacked on top of each other in the hallway next to the staircase. He seemed slightly sheepish, indeed, the tops of his ears had gone a lovely shade of pink. “It’s a hobby… I’ve acquired a lot that I haven’t had time to do anything with yet and they tend to clutter the place up a bit till I get round to them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having a hobby,” Belle said. “I think it’s interesting. I’ve never met an antique restorer before.”

“Bae despairs sometimes. But he doesn’t generally complain too much unless I have to store something in his room because I’ve run out of space in the rest of the house.”

Belle gave a laugh. “What do you do with it once you’ve restored it?”

“Normally I sell it on. Some bits I keep. Come through to the kitchen, that’s where all the best bits are.”

Belle tugged her boots off and followed Rum through to the kitchen, sliding a little on the laminate flooring in her fluffy socks. The room was beautifully decorated, and whilst the table and chairs and other various pieces of kitchen furniture looked to be from an identical set at first glance, when she looked closer she could see that each piece was unique.

“Did you do all these yourself?” she asked.

“Everything apart from the table,” Rum said. “I bought that as is, and then set about finding chairs and cabinets to match. It’s taken me nearly as long as I’ve been living here to get everything perfect.”

Belle ran her hand over the back of one of the chairs, looking at the delicate carving there. She could just imagine Rum sitting here in the kitchen, his long, gentle fingers deftly bringing these treasures of a bygone age back to their former glory. The thought wandered into her head, completely unbidden, of what it would feel like to have those long and gentle fingers caressing her rather than his antiques, and Belle ducked down behind the table to hide her blush, on the pretence of giving the chairs a more thorough inspection. She could hear Rum moving around the kitchen collecting dinner ingredients, and she looked at the way he walked without his cane, at his heavy, uneven gait.

“How’s your ankle?” she asked.

“Not its best,” Rum admitted, “I should have worn my support, but I forgot. Does this onion look off to you?”

Belle, hoping her furious blush had calmed down, got up and came over to the counter where Rum was cooking. The onion seemed to all intents and purposes to be fine, but it looked a little too slimy to be palatable. She wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah, I’d drawn the same conclusion.” He tossed it away and cut into a fresh one.

Belle leaned on the counter next to him.

"I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so casual," she said, taking in his attire fully. She’d seen that he’d been wearing jeans earlier, but his coat had covered up the rest of his clothes and she wanted to appreciate his slim frame in a casual shirt and sweater rather than a suit. Not that she did not appreciate him in a suit, but it was nice to see him outside of his usual immaculately put-together facade. It made this whole situation, being part of not only his life but also Bae’s, far more normal, far more comfortable. It was not as if she dated the cool, sharply-dressed legal expert during the week and he then became a different person on the weekends. Well, he might become a different person on that weekends, but she was a part of those as well, he was not trying to keep her firmly in the ‘work’ part of his life. "And I don’t believe you shaved this morning, either."

He smiled, and his hands stilled on the cutting board as Belle reached out to run a finger over his stubbly cheek.

"Don’t let the office know, my reputation as the best-dressed man in the building will be ruined."

There was a pause whilst they just looked at each other, Belle still stroking Rum’s cheek.

"If I kiss you now, what are the chances of Bae walking in?" she asked softly.

"High," Rum said. "But I don’t think he’d interrupt. He’s been determined to get us together for months. I don’t think he’d rock the boat now."

Belle leaned in and pressed her lips against Rum’s, but instead of settling for a chaste peck, she felt his arms come around her back and pull her in closer.

It seemed to be a long time before they broke away, and even when they did, Rum didn’t let her go. Belle went up on tiptoe to rest her chin against his shoulder, enjoying the embrace, and she startled when she saw Bae standing at the stove beside them, stirring the chicken and vegetables in the frying pan.

"Hey, don’t mind me," Bae said, grinning but pointedly not looking in their direction. "Just making sure the dinner doesn’t burn. Don’t worry, I’ve got this. You can go back to whatever it was you were doing."

"Thanks, son."

All he had to do was walk up two flights of stairs into her office and ask her if she would like to go out to dinner with him that evening. He even had a good excuse; he was celebrating his birthday. Actually, no, asking her out tonight was not a good idea. Far too short notice, she probably had other plans and he had no desire to put her in a position of conflict. And mentioning the fact it was his birthday was also a bad idea, in case she felt obliged to come with him because of the occasion, when in reality she held no desire to do so.

It might also spark a conversation on his age, and that was not one that Rum wanted to be having with a woman whom he knew to be young enough to be his daughter.

He came to the conclusion that it would be infinitely safer to leave well alone and wait to ask her out again. He could do it tomorrow. Or perhaps the day after. Or perhaps next week.

It was not that he didn’t like her and it was certainly not that he did not want to go on another date with her, but he wished that they could go straight to the date without any of the awkwardness that came before it. The last woman he’d dated was Bae’s mother, and that was back when he was a cocky law student who thought he could take over the world via the Old Bailey. Now, he knew that it was impossible to take over the world via the Old Bailey and his life’s experiences had most certainly brought his opinion of himself down a peg or two.

Do the brave thing and bravery will follow. Belle had said that to him once. It was true. He just wasn’t brave enough to do the brave thing yet.

He’d ask her tomorrow. Tomorrow was a good day to ask.

Resolved in this, Rum picked up his pencil and happily continued his work, wondering if and when he ought to go and treat himself to birthday chocolate cake in Granny’s over the way. Regina wasn’t there to stop him and no-one else would think it odd for him to be taking a longer than usual tea break. God knows he earned it, putting up with Her Majesty screeching in his ear every day.

Presently, there was a knock on his door and Belle’s head appeared around it. Gold dropped his pencil, always slightly flustered when he saw her without warning, especially if he had been thinking about her just a few moments prior. She seemed to provoke an unusual neurological reaction in him that made his fingers incapable of functioning properly.

“Hello,” she said brightly. “Are you busy?”

Gold shook his head. “Not at all,” he said hastily, remembering that he had a tongue and it was fairly vital to comprehensible speech.

“Excellent.” Belle inserted herself into the room fully and came over to him. “Happy Birthday, Rum.”

Rum blinked.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“I happened to see it on Kathryn’s computer calendar over her shoulder this morning, along with a note saying ‘do not tell anyone’.” Belle grinned. “I’ve got a little gift for you.”

He looked down at her hands, which were leaning flat on his desk and were empty. Perhaps her skirt had pockets. For a moment he entertained the notion of her having hidden something in the folds of her sweater’s cowl neck.

“What kind of a gift?” he asked. “I hope it didn’t cost much.”

“It didn’t cost me a penny,” Belle assured him. “And it’s a kind of gift that I am certain you will like. Close your eyes.”

Gold did as bid.

“Hold out your hands.”

He obeyed, and waited for something to be put into his palms. Nothing came.

Just then, he felt the soft pressure of Belle’s lips against his, and his eyes shot open for a moment before something in his mind decided, without the aid of conscious thought, to accept that this was an incredibly good birthday present and he relaxed into the kiss, bringing his hands up to cup her face and deepen it.

Belle was blushing a little when she broke away, but still smiling.

“Do I have to wait till my next birthday for another one?” he asked.

Belle grinned. “Well, that depends entirely on you.”

With that, she skipped out of the room – how she managed in her stiletto heels was beyond Rum completely – and left him alone and speechless in his office.

She was challenging him to make the next move, and if he didn’t make it, it would never be made. This was no time for cowardice. This was a make or break moment for his future happiness.